


Never Alone

by Dazzledfirestar



Category: Fantastic Four, Fantastic Four (Comicverse)
Genre: F/M, Infidelity
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2011-06-28
Updated: 2011-06-28
Packaged: 2017-10-20 19:38:31
Rating: Mature
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,002
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/216397
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Dazzledfirestar/pseuds/Dazzledfirestar
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Susan considers the choices she's made and the men in her life.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Never Alone

**Author's Note:**

  * For [redeem147](https://archiveofourown.org/gifts?recipient=redeem147).



> Written for heroine_fest on Livejournal in 2009.

It was nights like this… Nights when the kids were tucked in, Ben and Johnny were off living their lives and Reed was locked away in his lab working on whatever had claimed his brain in that moment. That was when she’d wonder how things could have been.

 

There were a million reasons to write off the occasional stray thought about him. She was married, happily. Most of the time. She had a family to think about. Though, she could have maybe…

 

She bit her lip and reached for her glass of wine. She could stave off the memories if there was someone around to talk to. If Reed would just stop working constantly and pay a little attention to her, then she could forget. She could curl up with the man she’d married; have him touch her, make love to her and she’d feel loved and cherished and she’d know absolutely that she was where she belonged.

 

Maybe in a perfect world it would work that way. Susan knew better. After all the years they’d been together, she knew better than to think that Reed could stop for even a moment and remember that he had a wife that might be more in need of his attention than some new formula or project. But she’d known what she was getting into when she’d married him. No turning back.

 

That didn’t stop her mind from wandering though. It never did. She could tell herself a million times that she would never consider really leaving. She couldn’t put her children thought that. She couldn’t put her <i>team</i> through that, though deep down she knew that if she ever <i>did</i>, at least Johnny would understand. Well, maybe not understand so much as back her up. But she wouldn’t do it. She couldn’t and she knew that.

 

So that left her with these empty evenings. Alone, occasionally drinking a little too much wine and remembering. Were memories supposed to be that vivid? That real? Was she supposed to find it hard to breathe when she thought of him? She knew that surely she shouldn’t have felt as bereft after the last time she’d seen him that he couldn’t press his lips to hers. That was the disadvantage to being underwater. Her air bubble wouldn’t allow her to experience that one tiny little thing.

 

She slipped into bed, still considering whether or not she should feel horrible for even thinking about it all. His voice was always so clear when she thought about him.

 

 _I know what you want, Susan._

 

And he did. He had. It had felt like he was reading her mind; like he knew her better than anyone else ever had. It had frightened her more than anything at the time. She had been so far from Reed emotionally that she hadn’t even considered the encounter as being unfaithful. She’d walked out after all and was fighting a war against the man that was supposed to be her husband. The man that was supposed to love and respect her, and do all those other things that people vow to do when they get married. He’d broken that trust first. Her encounter… her dalliance with Namor… that wasn’t what had caused the problems. That had been a symptom of all the other things that were wrong.

 

And now… Now things were supposed to be better. She and Reed had talked things out, had agreed to disagree and move forward. They were… things were better. Settled. Comfortable.

 

But part of her didn’t want comfortable. It wanted that energy; that passion that Namor had shown her. That all consuming, forget-the-rest-of-the-world-exists passion. There was absolutely nothing comfortable in what Namor did to her. It was intense, obsessive, blinding… _;Please…_

 _Please what, Susan?_

 

He’d touched every inch of her. His hands and lips were everywhere. Everywhere but the one place she wanted them. She wanted to feel the press of his lips to hers in that moment. The pressure, the surety, the affection and if she were really honest with herself, the love that flowed from him. It was in his touch too, but she knew it would be so much stronger in his kiss.

 

She’d been denied that. Perhaps he knew that if they shared that, she wouldn’t be able to turn back. The rest of it she would write off, step back from and justify. But if he’d kissed her like she wanted him to, like she knew he wanted to, she wouldn’t have had the strength to come back to her life on the surface. She would have happily spent the rest of her life there with him.

 

But she couldn’t, and they both knew that. So he kept that last piece of the puzzle from her. That last little bit of intimacy, that last thing she needed, he kept from her.  Perhaps it was part of the game. Perhaps it was some form of self preservation on his part; the last thing he could hang onto and pretend he had control over in the swirl of emotion that always came when they were together. Perhaps he knew that if he pushed and she stayed, she’d regret it eventually, though she wasn’t entirely sure she didn’t regret leaving just as much.

 

The memories continued to flood over her. His touch, his voice, the press of his lips to her skin. She moaned softly, his name slipping past her defenses in a moment of weakness.

 

She told herself to forget it. She told herself to let it all go, to leave it as a memory, or better yet, write it off as fantasy and pretend he’d never crossed the line with her. As she rolled over, glancing at the digital clock on her bedside table and realizing that once again she’d be sleeping alone, she sighed.

 

Fantasy… memory in that moment was all she had to keep herself company and deep down she knew that Namor would never let her be alone.


End file.
